Gambling is becoming an increasingly popular form of entertainment. Particularly important to the gaming industry are electronic gaming terminals. Electronic gaming terminals include reel slot machines, video poker machines, and video bingo machines. Because such gaming terminals are an important source of income for the gaming industry, casinos continually search for new ways to improve the profitability of their gaming machines by increasing functional capabilities. This includes improving their entertainment value by providing more sophisticated games, visual/audio displays, and user-friendly interfaces. It also includes better gaming terminal security, player-tracking data for implementing marketing strategies, and more sophisticated financial and accounting reports.
Originally gaming machines were provided as stand alone devices that operated independently. Today, most gaming machines are in serial communication with at least one computer that provides serial polling of the gaming machines in a master-slave communication protocol to obtain gaming terminal data. Typically, each gaming function is performed by a separate host computer, which operates independently of any other host computers connected to the gaming machines. For example, an accounting computer, a player tracking computer, and a progressive game computer may all operate independently to perform a specific function. Each host computer is connected to a serial poller that polls a slot machine interface board (SMIB) that is part of each gaming terminal. The SMIB stores data collected from the gaming terminal until the serial poller signals the SMIB to release the data to the host computer.
Serial communication links were first introduced to provide financial accounting and reporting data from each gaming terminal to a host computer. Later, additional casino functions were added such as player tracking, cash less gaming, and progressive bonusing. Each of these functions evolved at different times and generally implemented separately into the casinos' gaming system. These new functions were added piecemeal, simply by making a serial connection from the gaming terminal to a separate, independent host computer to handle that specific gaming function.
The serial connection was an easy technological solution to the demands at the time. However, these serial-based systems are limited, and new functions are needed that cannot be easily supported by these systems. Specifically, what is needed is a system that allows a party, other than the gaming establishment, to securely monitor the flow of data that occurs between the gaming terminals and the gaming establishment's host computers. In particular, it would be highly desirable to enable the non-gaming establishment party to remotely and securely monitor gaming terminal accounting transactions for financial accounting purposes, and other gaming function purposes.